


The Great Becoming

by Hageny



Category: Bedannibal - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hageny/pseuds/Hageny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bedelia and Hannibal meet again 15 years after Florence, and see themselves changed forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> A few things to know about this story:
> 
> Firstly, the character, Ligeia, that Hannibal makes reference to is, like Bedelia mentions, a character created by Poe. It is a short story of his, one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature, so although it is not necessary to read it before reading this, a quick Wikipedia search on it may help shed some light on why I chose to reference the character in this story.  
> Secondly, this story is very heavy and dark, so if you are easily depressed, it may be something to stay away from.  
> Thirdly, cancer does play a part in this story. If this subject matter is too heavy for you, best not read. 
> 
> As always, you can reach out to me here and at hageny.tumblr.com. I'm always available, and love to interact with my readers. Don't hesitate to ask a question regarding the piece. Comments on my work are always much appreciated. 
> 
> Thank you to my faithful readers--of whom there are too many to name here. I have truly enjoyed getting to know all of you, and hope we can continue to have fun with one another (goodness knows I have had too much). To any new readers, welcome, and thank you.
> 
> ****

Hannibal watches wistfully as a small spider, of the infraorder Araneomorphae, spins its delicate web along the casement window that sits near his table in the café. He is aware his espresso, very artfully pulled, is getting cold, but he is suddenly struck by the parallelism of the delicacy of the web and the frailty of life, his own included.

_Knocked down and torn asunder with a single swipe_ , he muses silently, to himself.

His eyes return to the small, opened package sitting before him on the table, and he takes the box carefully into his hands and removes both the note and the object inside.

_If it suits you, seek me out. This, I’m sure, still does. Would that I could see myself in your memory palace, after all this time; your last sight of me, my younger self, which has long since gone away._

_-Bedelia_

Hannibal’s lips curl into a bemused smile as he picks up the perfume bottle that accompanied the note. He opens the cap and inhales slowly—bergamot, incense, opopanax. Shalimar, now as then.

 “The frailty of life, indeed” he says quietly to himself. He downs the last of his espresso, and steps out into the city, knowing that soon, he will lay eyes on the only woman to ever bear the moniker ‘Mrs. Lecter’.

~~~~

“It did not take you long to find me, Hannibal. Your senses are still sharp, even after so much time.”

Hannibal regards Bedelia thoughtfully as he stands in the entryway of her home.

“Please” she says softly, and ushers him into her living room.

He sees two armchairs facing one another, and memories of his time as her patient flood him, unexpectedly. He chooses, instead, the sofa, which is stretched between the chairs.

“May I sit next to you?” he asks, looking at her warmly.

Bedelia bows her head in agreement from her place on the sofa, and Hannibal nestles himself in beside her, careful to keep a respectful distance.

“Strange, this new seating arrangement” she says, smiling demurely at him.

“We spent many nights closer, as husband and wife” he replies, flashing her a rather cocky grin.

A smirk tantalizes Bedelia’s lips, but she tries to swallow it, brushing at the fabric of her black dress.

“How many years has it been, Hannibal?” she asks softly, reaching for her wine glass.

“Fifteen, Bedelia.” He pauses, somewhat solemnly. “Fifteen years since I last saw you.”

A certain tenderness passes over her face. “Time does wait for no man, does it?” she asks quietly.

“No,” he replies, looking away solemnly, “no it doesn’t.”

“No doubt you are wondering why I have sought you out, after all this time.”

“You never looked for me sooner” Hannibal replies, somewhat brusquely.

“You never looked for me at all.”

Hannibal freezes, and studies her face carefully, trying to ascertain whether the emotion that had flickered away so quickly was something resembling sadness, and regret.

“I read your book, and every article published after its release. I have also read every article you have written, since the furor died down and the focus returned to your work, or the work that you accomplished before your retirement rather. I was glad to see you still contributed your thoughts to the field of psychology. Your knowledge base is vast, and has always been, Bedelia.” He pauses. “I thought that for the sake of your claims in your book, I should keep my distance. I’m sure you were indifferent to my absence” he says, giving her a look so intent it’s almost challenging in its forthrightness.

Bedelia looks away, and swallows solemnly. “Scrutiny was what I have escaped by moving here, to France.”

“I have led a quiet life as well, for someone on the run from the FBI.”

“I was aware of your escape when it occurred.” She pauses. “I wondered where your travels might lead you.”

“To Will Graham, you mean?” he remarks.

She says nothing.

“Not anymore” he says, once again eyeing her intently.

She inhales deeply, feeling inwardly satisfied. “I am sure the FBI will waste no time in trying to ascertain information regarding my whereabouts. I am quite certain that they have not noticed I left months ago, but their hunt for you will change that.”

“An inconvenience I am sorry for” Hannibal says, feeling sincerely sorry. Rare for him.

She looks nervously at her hands, and Hannibal realizes this is one of the only times he has ever seen her look truly uneasy.

“I should, then, make haste and mention my reason for reaching out to you” she says, folding her shaking hands in her lap, and looking up at him, face taut with sadness.

“This is…difficult for you, Bedelia.”

“Even the difficult things must be done.”

He pauses, pressing his lips together, solemnly. “I do not know why, and somehow I am not sure I want to indulge my curiosity, for the first time in my life.”

“I’m dying, Hannibal.”

Nothing. Hannibal feels--and imagines he hears--nothing, but in truth the impact of her words washes over him so powerfully all he hears is a roar, and something that sounds like white noise.

The sound of the crest of that wave we call grief.

“I found out maybe a month ago” she says, trying to sound at ease with the truth of her own mortality sliding in her mouth. “I wondered what to do, at first. To write you, or not. For obvious reasons I could not have visited, and I realized all your mail was screened and writing was impossible. And so I waited.” She pauses. “And when you escaped I breathed, for the first time in weeks, a sigh of relief. That you could know.”

Hannibal struggles to swallow the news, and pulls at his tie, looking at the ground.

“What if I hadn’t escaped, Bedelia?”

“What if I wasn’t dying, Hannibal?”

He swallows heavily, and tries to look at her, but can’t.

“What is it?”

“Cancer. Uterine cancer.”

He is silent for a few moments, so she speaks.

“This is not only difficult for me” she says, understandingly. “This is the first time you have had to deal with a death you did not cause.”

She waits, but he still says nothing, just reaches for his wine glass to fiddle awkwardly with the rim.

“Your first spring lamb” she says, softly.

“This is not a therapy session, Bedelia” Hannibal says tersely, rising from the couch and walking to the window.

“What is it, Hannibal?” she asks from her seat on the couch.

He is silent for a few moments, staring bleakly out of the window.

“This is the end of life as I know it.”

~~~~

Water splashes delicately against the cool marble bathtub as Hannibal tenderly washes Bedelia’s hair, the scent of lilacs filling the air as he gingerly massages her silken strands, which are still, for now, gloriously thick.

“Today does have the quality of a memory, Hannibal” Bedelia says, quietly, closing her eyes and enjoying the deftness with which his fingertips massage her temples.

“A memory, indeed. Seems only yesterday I bathed you with Florence as our backdrop, and youth as a friend.”

“We were not so young then, Hannibal” Bedelia chides, softly.

“We are certainly not young at all, now” he nearly whispers.

A silence settles over the bathroom, so heavy it feels almost like the air after rain in summer.

“I have three weeks left from today, Hannibal” Bedelia says, finally breaking the silence.

Hannibal says nothing, and when Bedelia runs out of patience waiting for him to speak, she looks up at him.

He purses his lips and avoids making eye contact, choosing instead to dip another hand in the water.

“What do you want me to say, Bedelia?” he asks, quietly.

“What would you say to Will Graham?” she says coldly.

He stops moving his hands and locks eyes with her, his muscular, elegant hands holding her head in between his fingers.

“What does it say to you that I could stab him and find words to say, and see you as you are now and feel lost for words?”

She ponders this silently, and slowly raises a hand above the water and gently caresses his forearm.

“Nor could you find words to say for Mischa” she says slowly, realization coming upon her like a boat coming ashore.

“Sometimes nothing is the right thing to say. What is more eloquent, more illustrious, and more limited than the English language; this world language from which no words spring forth which seem appropriate to describe what one feels when someone is dying.”

Hannibal continues to wash her hair in silence, and Bedelia makes no move to break it anymore.

~~~~

“Do you remember this, Hannibal?”

Hannibal raises his head from his place on her bed and looks up to see what her eyes are appraising.

She steps aside, her silk robe brushing along the carpet, to reveal the object in her hands: a black velvet gown, around which winds thick gold stitching coiled like a serpent around prey.

“Florence, the gala. Where we danced, and I dipped you” Hannibal replies. He pauses briefly. “Like in a fairytale.”

She looks away and trails her slender fingers along the delicate bodice.

“Why did you keep it?”

She returns the dress to its place in her closet before closing the doors and turning around, wandering slowly toward her vanity where she takes a seat and picks up a brush with which to comb her hair, blow dried for her by Hannibal. He felt it would have been inappropriate to send her to sleep with soaking wet hair.

“I kept everything from that time.” She stops for a moment, and turns to face him. “Of course, I had the luxury,” she says, looking at the carpet, “I didn’t have to go to prison.”

“It was my promise to see that you didn’t” he says simply.

A hush falls over the room.

“Why am I here, Bedelia?” he asks. “What is my purpose other than to face, with you, the sound of the sands through your hourglass?”

Bedelia lays her hairbrush on the vanity and straightens.

“I cannot deny you your desire, Hannibal, any more than I can deny what you are.”

He looks puzzled, and says nothing.

“I know your deepest desire has always been to…make a meal of me. This desire is an inherent part of you, and is a driving force for almost anything you do, and is central to your life, and not just with regard to me.”

She looks solemnly at the carpet again, before raising her head again, her icy blue eyes meeting his with both grace and an unswerving strength.

“I am giving you the chance, Hannibal. I am dying. It makes no difference to me what happens now because the end result is the same regardless. You can spend my last moments of life with me, in my home, as we spent our time in Florence, or you can take the opportunity to eat me before time robs you of the chance forever.”

For perhaps the first time in all the time she has known him, Hannibal remains silent, and struggles to form a proper reply.

“You gave me a chance to live my life the way I wanted to, and you gave up your ability to do the same. You set me free, while simultaneously denying yourself the thing that mattered most to you. I will not deny you, now, your chance to enjoy what is most gratifying for you.”

He still says nothing, then rises. “We should not have such heavy conversation before bed; it spoils your sleep, and rest is most critical for you.”

“What does sleep matter now, Hannibal?”

“Goodnight, Bedelia” he says, closing the door to her bedroom, leaving her alone in the silence in which still hangs the weight of the offer she has laid bare on the table.

~~~~

Hannibal awakens in his bed in the guest room hours later, and the delicate hands on the ivory clock near his bedside table read 3:30 am.

Curious at first as to why he has woken, he realizes slowly that he is cold, and gets out of bed to retrieve a thick, lambskin blanket from the chest that sits at the foot of his bed. He spreads it delicately along the length of the bed and is about to return to the comfort of its sheets when he remembers the silk bedsheets on Bedelia’s bed. Little protection against French winters.

He heads down the hallway, and very carefully opens the door to her bedroom, half sure she is equipped with the same fleecy defenses as he is, but feels it too inconsiderate not to check.

The doors falls open gently and without sound, and he looks in and sees her platinum hair swirling like a halo around her head, offset by the shimmering silk on which it lays.

Intuition has served him well, and he sees that she is indeed without covering against the cold, save for a modest silk comforter.

He fingers the lambskin comforter that he brought from his room and lays it gently over her, careful not to rouse her from her sleep.

She moves a little and inhales a little more deeply, sleep slightly disturbed, but Hannibal brushes a hand along her face to quiet her before she wakes up.

Tears spring, suddenly, into his eyes, and the breath that he draws in is ragged, and slow.

“Bellissima” he whispers softly. He feels a sudden rush of emotion well up within him, as he realizes that the face along which his fingers are delicately dancing will soon slip away, along with the rest of her.

_Mischa, MISCHA_ , the child inside of him screams hopelessly.

A tear falls onto his cheek.

“Not again” he says softly. “Not this again.”

He sees the chair at the opposite end of her room facing the foot of her bed, and settles himself there. He remains, for a few hours, shadows throwing themselves like covers over him as he stares bleakly at his former wife, whose body is bathed in moonlight.

When he finally returns to his room, he tries to organize his thoughts by writing in his leather-bound journal, but finds this a useless practice. He merely tosses for the rest of the evening, and hardly sleeps at all.

Two simple words are printed in the pages of his notebook, which remains open.

_Ligeia, Ligeia._

~~~~

“Your characterization of me is disturbingly accurate.”

It is evening the next day, and Hannibal and Bedelia are sitting in her kitchen, cold metal and austerity offset only by the plants that line the walls. He is standing behind her stove, ingredients lined up to prepare dinner, an old habit for both of them, which stretches back to Florence. Old habits die hard.

“It would have been disrespectful to be anything other than true with regard to your nature, Hannibal. The plot of my book may have been fictional, but you were not.”

Hannibal smirks, feeling satisfied. “You, more than anyone, should know my nature.”

“For better…and for worse.”

“You have only seen the worst, but that hand was never dealt to you” he says, stopping his preparations to look at her.

She lowers her eyes in thought. “Why not, Hannibal?” It was a question to which she always desired the answer.

“Because you did nothing to deserve the worst. People get what they deserve. You were privy to the better parts of me because you earned it. Nothing is ever free. It has as much to do with you as with me.”

Bedelia swallows his answer, and turns it over in her mind, feeling warmed by the response, fascinated by the odd aloofness with which he can deliver even the highest compliment.

“You are making more acorns and marsala?” she queries, changing the subject and eyeing the food he is cooking.

Hannibal smirks again, and flashes her a coy look. “No, no I’m not. I am preparing a dinner for you which I think you will enjoy, free of human flesh, out of courtesy.”

She smiles at him, a tenderness washing over her as she remembers a time, long since gone, during which she would sit at the wood counter in Florence and he would put on extravagant shows in their kitchen after he’d come home from work. 

“You know, I don’t believe I will ever forget the clever reference you made to cunnilingus during our dinner with Dimmond” Hannibal says,  eyeing her again as he throws finely sliced steak into a well-oiled frying pan in which several shallots are browning.

Bedelia returns the saucy look, swallows her smirk, and replies, “It was the only thing that kept me alive.” She intends this to come out as something of a joke, but halfway through she acknowledges the suspicion she has long since harbored that this was not far from the truth, and thus the statement has an eerie heaviness to it that she did not intend.

Hannibal stares at her, and his smirk is replaced by a look of genuine tenderness, which surprises both of them.

“It was not the only thing. It was not even really anything, in the big scheme of things” he says, looking back at the food that simmers before him.

“What was it, then, that kept me…alive?” Bedelia asks, struggling to form the word ‘alive’ in her mouth, put off by her own question.

Hannibal removes the food from the pan, and places it delicately on a fine porcelain dish, which he sets before her. He takes for himself grain and vegetables, but no animal flesh.

“There were many reasons, all of which are too heavy to discuss before dinner” he says, handing her a fork and knife. “Please, enjoy.”

She notices his avoidance, and takes his cue, and ends the conversation, obliging him by taking a bite. She closes her eyes, struck by the fact that her senses seem almost to have forgotten the level of skill with which Hannibal cooks.

She inhales deeply. “Absolutely delicious. As it always was” she says, smiling at him.

Hannibal smiles gratefully, and they eat in relative silence, her perched upon a booth, and he on the other side of the counter, bent over the countertop. He clears the dishes and is busy ensuring her kitchen is as spotless as it was before he began cooking as she makes her way toward the dishwasher with her wine glass in hand. She sticks the glass in the washer, and looks at him as he is wiping down the counter.

“Just like old times” she says quietly, smiling both at him, and at the memories which his presence has forced her to acknowledge, for the first time in many years.

He returns her smile, and surprises her by bending toward her and kissing her temple, lingering there as he takes in the smell of her hair. He pulls away, and avoids her eyes as he continues wiping the counter.

“What strength memories do have” he says softly. “We think of what life has given, and mourn what it takes away.”

“Nothing is forever, Hannibal” Bedelia says, wanting to indulge the urge she feels to reach out and stroke his arm tenderly.

“No, no nothing is. Memories are eternal, but nothing is forever. What a cruel blow delivered by life, that we may ponder eternally the grief we feel over the things we’ve lost that meant the most.”

“Yes, indeed” Bedelia replies, turning away sadly.

Hannibal finishes wiping down her counter and rinses his hands.

“You used to sometimes favor a massage before bed. If this is still something you enjoy, I will be happy to indulge you” he says, struggling to drown his emotions behind the veil.

Bedelia senses that the moment is lost, and presses her lips together sadly. “I will draw a bath first, before I take advantage of the offer.”

Hannibal bows in reply and she retreats to the second story of the house.

Distance, in all its ways, divides them again.

~~~~

Hannibal rubs his hands gently down Bedelia’s back, Debussy tickling softly on the old record player in her home; he savors the feel of her skin against his as they lie beside on another, Bedelia with her negligee dropped to her waist so that her back is exposed. Hannibal has rolled up the sleeves of his linen shirt, hands wet with massage oil—patchouli, rosemary—and is focused intently on the muscles in her back, which are even more delicate now, her frame almost emaciated, no longer merely slim and balletic.

“You have to decide soon, Hannibal” she says softly, turning her face around to his. “It won’t be that long.”

“What makes you believe that, Bedelia?” he asks, not meeting her eyes, merely continuing his gentle, sweeping strokes.

“You just know, when you’re dying. You can feel your body giving in, slowly; everything is a little hazier--”. She stops short, seeing a tear slide down his cheek.

“I’m not Mischa, Hannibal.”

“No, no you’re not. You never were. You are Ligeia to me, in all ways” he says softly, struggling to breathe normally, tear after helpless tear sliding down his face as he massages her.

“That fictional character created by Poe, who bested even Death and returned to the realm of the living?” She pauses. “I can’t beat death, Hannibal, and neither can you. And neither could Mischa. It’s why you ate her. You know that, you always have.”

He says nothing, simply continuing to massage her.

“There was a life before me, Hannibal. You found your way in the world.”

“The life before you is not the same as the life after you. Life before was not spoiled by your absence because it wasn’t traumatized by your passing. Life after is different. Life after you is having someone who comes into your room to turn on the light, and then having to get up and turn it on yourself.”

“You turned on the light every day for the last 15 years without me. Maybe with the help of Will Graham.”

“Will Graham could not sustain me. I assumed he could, as did he. And the light everyday was on, but dim.”

Hannibal waits for a response, and looks down at her to see her eyes are closed, and she is drifting toward sleep.

“The massage has made you sleepy, I--”

“You have to decide soon, Hannibal,” she murmurs, “time is running out, and my light will dim forever.”

Hannibal lays down beside her, curling himself around her form, as if he could shield her physically from what was killing her slowly inside.

~~~~

The days pass in a blur, day fading to night, fading back into day. Sun rising and setting, marking the passing of time. But Hannibal felt no real time.

They spent the next four days together, mostly in the comfort of her home; he cooked for her every evening, and they went out shopping together once, for nothing in particular. He took her to an old, elegant restaurant not far from her home, and they enjoyed a private supper together, talking fondly about times that had long since passed.

Hannibal came down the stairs the next evening to find a pale, frail Bedelia sitting at her dinner table.

“Bedelia?” he asked quietly.

“Now, Hannibal, you have to decide now. I don’t have much time left. Death is a shadow, and he has walked from the far corner of the earth and hovers just in the doorway. You have to decide.”

Hannibal pauses for a moment, before seating himself gently in the chair across from hers.

“I can’t” he says quietly.

“You have to decide, Hannibal.”

“No, I can’t eat you, Bedelia,” he says, looking up at her, tears blinding his vision, “not like this.”

“You spent years sending me greeting cards with recipes, Hannibal” she replies, sounding confused.

“I spent years thinking that if I ate you it would be at your will” he replies urgently. “This, this is not your will, this is the lack of decision. This is Death in the doorway to spite both me and you. This is not a choice, it’s surrender.”

“So then, what? I die a helpless, cruel death? I watch myself crushed hopelessly as you turn and run?”

“No, no” Hannibal whispers.

He looks away from her, out of the window at the dusk that is settling around them.

“I will take you somewhere where you can know me fully.”

“Where?”

“I will take you to my home. In Lithuania.  And all that was once denied will be yours, forever.”

~~~~

The door to Lecter’s family castle creaks, rusty on its hinges. Unused since decades ago, when it was last an orphanage. Now, disrepair and disregard have run the whole building down, and it is a skeleton of its former glory.

Hannibal shuts the door with his foot, and carries Bedelia inside, who is frailer now than hours before when they left the airport in France. She turns her head slowly to look at the surroundings, all decay and darkness ahead.

“It was here that I was happy, as a child. Mischa was alive, my family thrived. Mischa died later, but not here.”

“I will die here” Bedelia says, softly, looking up at him.

“I died here as well,” Hannibal says, looking gently at her, “a part of me did, as a child, because I knew when we left time as I knew it was over. And now I will die completely, as will you.”

Hannibal carries Bedelia into what was once the sitting room, and a pretty couch, still remarkably well preserved, sits against the far wall. He crosses the floor, and places her on the sofa.

Her breathing is labored, and her eyelids flutter as she reaches for Hannibal’s hand.

“Your time has come” he says gently, caressing the back of her hand, feeling her delicate slender fingers intertwining with his.

“Not yet, there is still time enough, and I have yet to see you completely bared, without your person suit.”

Hannibal swallows heavily and sits beside her and he tells her of his childhood, of Mischa and Lady Murasaki, of revenge, and finally of John Hopkin’s, where he would meet her.

“This is all of me, all the portions that lay untold before--my spring lamb, and everything before and after that. And you, when I first met you,” he struggles, trying to swallow his tears as he speaks, “and of the way you looked when I first saw you, and the way you look now, and how you could never be more beautiful now, not even if you were cured.”

“How so, Hannibal?” Bedelia whispers softly.

“Because we have both been without our person suits in these last days. Because now you see me, and I see you--because you let me--and no one will ever see again what we see now.”

Bedelia smiles and draws in a ragged, choked breath. “Will Graham always called me Bluebeard’s Wife. You tell him, I am the last. And know forever, for yourself, just how much you meant to me.”

A tear slips down Hannibal’s cheek. “As there were none before you, so shall there be none after you.”

“If love was not so meaningless it might be used, but it is too weak to describe these feelings we have which are like ourselves, strong and enduring. This is not goodbye Hannibal. I am part of you, as you are part of me, and we have changed each other. And wherever there is light, I will be there.”

“I will look for you in all the spaces that are dark” Hannibal says softly, tears slipping one by one down his cheeks.

He watches her eyes close, sees her breath grow shallow, and finally he sees it cease entirely, and something inside him comes undone, forever changed.

He sits beside her for what feels like an eternity, and steps outside to the car that he rented, and brings inside a heavy briefcase.

He spends the next few hours building a fire in the rubble that sits inside the old fireplace, siphoning out some of the blood that remains in Bedelia’s heart, and fashions a prosthetic eye in a mold which he heats inside the fire. He takes both the blood from her heart, and the diamond from the wedding ring he gave her and puts both to good use. When the eye is done, he removes it from its mold, and sees the diamond in the center, glittering like an enormous pupil, and her blood dancing within the acrylic of the eye.

And then, he takes the iron poker from the fireplace, and stabs his own eye out.

~~~~

A few hours later, Hannibal hears the roar of helicopters and the blare of sirens surrounding his castle. He draws in a slow breath, blinks slowly, feeling the cold acrylic of his new eye adjusting to its home in his socket, and takes Bedelia into his arms.

Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, and Will Graham step outside of their car, wind gusting wildly, and all tense as they see the castle door swing open. Their SWAT team surrounds them, and raises their guns, prepared to fire.

“DON’T” Crawford says sharply, and they lower their weapons just a little, somewhat surprised at the order.

Hannibal emerges, and their jaws drop in unison as they see him for the first time.

He stands tall and erect upon the decaying stoop, untroubled by the wind, his eyes trained on Bedelia’s stiff, beautiful form. He looks up slowly, and the blood that went seeping from his eye socket when he gored his eye has dried to look like tears slipping down his face. Inside his socket, its new tenant fixes a startling gaze on his former allies, diamond shining brightly from its home in the center of the eye.

“H-Hannibal” Will gasps, nearly dropping to his knees in shock. Alana reaches for him to steady him, but she is biting down so firmly on the skin of her lip she is nearly drawing blood.

“Hello Will, Alana, Jack, what a time it’s been since you last saw me, not too long, a few weeks. Seems like forever when the search is for me, doesn’t it?”

He steps down the steps and the team raises their weapons again.

“No, no boys, don’t shoot. I am not running anymore. To where would I be going?” he asks, looking tenderly down at Bedelia again.

“What did you do to her, Hannibal?” Jack bellows.

“She died, Jack. Like your Bella was taken, she was taken from me, and in the same cold fashion. You will have to send me a note, out of respect, like the one I sent you. From what poetic well will you be drawing to describe to me my grief? Your well is not so deep, and my suffering is quite vast, Jack. Better dig.”

“What have you done, Hannibal?” Will says, chocking back his own tears at the sight of the man he once held so dear.

“I let her see me, all of me, the parts I denied even you. And she saw, and she died, and I saw my own foolishness laughing from the pits of Hell out at me, at all the years I spent in the dark.”

“We’re taking you into custody, Hannibal,” Alana cries, “there is no point in fighting or putting up this phony, delicate façade in the hope that it will lower our defenses.”

“This is no façade, Alana. This is something you can never understand, at least for now. You wait, time will pass like a soldier in procession in an army, and Death will come, and he will take your wife, and then your son. He will take them both before you, I hope, so that then you will see and understand, and a part of you will die again as it died in my kitchen, and everything beyond that will still be borrowed, borrowed like your life is now, and even your grief will belong to me.”

Alana shivers in shock, and she, Will and Jack draw together silently as the team removes Bedelia’s lifeless body from Hannibal’s arms and takes him into the armored van.

~~~~

Cold metal, the faint metallic smell of water, and stale air.

Hannibal draws in another breath, hoping to catch something outside of these three smells that continue to assault his senses but he catches nothing, and puckers his lips in disappointment.

He hears the door leading to his cell open, and turns to regard his visitor, warmed by the familiarity of his surroundings. The old institution, where, between him and his visitors sits only a thick wall of glass, and their wit and sanity.

_And eventually the lack thereof_ , he thinks to himself, smirking as he sees Will Graham step up to his cage.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Will?” Hannibal asks pleasantly, a cocky smirk dancing across his face.

Will’s face remains typically stoic, and he is silent at first.

“They wanted me to come here and talk to you” he says slowly, averting his gaze for a moment before meeting Hannibal’s eyes again.

“How thoughtful of them to think of me. You did not come of your own accord, as you used to.”

“The time for that has passed” Will says quietly, struggling to hold Hannibal’s gaze, deeply perturbed by the diamond that shines from its socket, with the blood that swirls around it.

“Yes, yes it has” Hannibal says. He pauses, and steps closer to the wall where Will stands on the opposite side, seeing fear and disconcertion etch themselves more deeply into his face.

“How is your son doing, and your wife? They’re both still alive, good for you.”

Will says nothing, and Hannibal laughs softly.

“You did not always greet me with such disrespect, Will. It’s no bother, I can find out for myself how they are” he says, a chilling smile crossing his face. “Now to the matter of why you’re here.”

“They wanted me to come, Jack and Alana” Will nearly hisses, clenching a fist.

“I see,” Hannibal says kindly, “and what did _they_ want?”

“The eye, why? What were you thinking, what--”

Hannibal cuts Will off, suddenly. “ _You_ want to know. You came, they did not, and you want to know. If you can say this, then I will tell you. Still you could not deny yourself the pleasure of seeing me.”

Will clenches his teeth, and finally spits out, “I, _I_ want to know, and you will tell me.”

“There it is. That’s not so hard, is it Will? Or maybe honesty is for you. It certainly was during our therapy sessions. Nevermind, you were polite and I will indulge both politeness and curiosity.”

Will takes a slow breath, unsure of whether he wants to hear what Hannibal will say. “Please” he says softly.

Hannibal smirks and draws even closer to Will, until his nose is nearly pressed against the glass.

“I wanted you to see, every day, forever, what you will never be. I fashioned it in my castle after Bedelia died, and thought mostly of her, but when it was finished you did cross my mind, but not affectionately. Rudely you intruded on my thoughts.”

“It must have hurt to shove it in” Will says, hands shaking at his sides.

“Not as much as it hurt to watch her die.”

Hannibal says nothing for a moment until he is sure Will will not interrupt again.

“After I shoved it in and saw myself for the first time, I thought of what I could say to you when I saw you again, when you came asking for a reason like a child asking why the sky is blue. And I tremble now to give it to you. I siphoned the blood from her heart because from this organ she gave me understanding and love. I placed the diamond from her wedding ring in the center because when she became my wife she guided me, or tried because I stubbornly would not listen, and it was through her that I saw myself so much more clearly, especially after I married her. And it is with her now that I will look out into the world, into its beauty and savageness, into its intelligence and banality, and see all things more clearly now that there is light.”

He pauses again and moves even closer to the glass and locks Will’s eyes with a gaze so terrifyingly sharp Will nearly chokes on his tongue in fear.

“And it is with this eye that I will look at you, and you will remember every day—because I will never let you forget—that she is the one person who managed to get closer than you ever did, understood me in ways you never could, and eclipsed you so brilliantly that you will never shine again. I want to see you every day, and every day for you to remember that no matter how far you run, no matter how much you learn, no matter how tightly you cling to your family, that you will never escape me, that you will never be as intelligent as she was, and that you will never know love like what I knew when I was with her and she died in my arms. That is what I want for you. And remember, it’s not only me looking at you now. She is looking too.”

Will swallows so intensely that he nearly brings his esophagus into his stomach, and he backs slowly away from Hannibal and the glittering red and diamond eye that gleams from his socket. He turns away from Hannibal and reaches for the door when he hears Hannibal call his name, and stops.

“Doesn’t your life seem so meaningless now? You have belonged to me too, like Alana, and your family is borrowed on my time. Maybe I will let you keep them. Bedelia’s life was entirely her own, like mine. Do you think you will ever know this?”

Will waits for a moment, and barely shakes his head.

“No, you are right, Will. You will never know this.”

Will leaves, and the door shuts softly behind him.

“Life and love will elude him forever. This is my design, and he will never witness his becoming.”

Hannibal looks up at the ceiling, and the lights suddenly become infinitely brighter above him.

“And you, my Bedelia, you are with me forever. As there were none before you, so shall there be none after you.”

The lights shine so brightly above Hannibal that an electrician is called to check the fuse, but no amount of tickering can change their luminosity. Alana shuts the power off in the cell a week later, for just a few seconds, but the lights do not go out inside of Hannibal’s cell, and he stands bathed forever in their radiance.

 

_Fini_


End file.
